1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains in general to electronic commerce and in particular to processing purchase transactions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic commerce has become commonplace. There are many merchants conveniently offering goods and services via web sites on the Internet, and there are an even greater number of buyers who purchase the goods and services. In many cases, the electronic commerce transactions involve physical goods. For example, many buyers purchase items such as books, compact disks (CDs) and DVDs. Buyers can also purchase electronic content such as downloadable text and/or music and access to web sites that provide news or entertainment stories.
Some electronic commerce sites on the Internet allow buyers to use third party electronic commerce payment systems to process purchase transactions. Third party payment systems allow buyers to purchase goods or services from multiple merchants. A benefit of a third party payment system is that a buyer does not have establish an account and/or provide payment information (e.g., credit card number) to each merchant that the buyer patronizes. Instead, the buyer can purchase goods and services from multiple merchants while only providing payment information to the third party payment system.
The problem with current third party systems is that since they communicate with multiple merchants, it is difficult for third party payment systems to handle all types of purchase transactions. For example, if a buyer wants to apply a coupon to a purchase transaction, a third party payment system may not be capable of incorporating the coupon into the purchase transaction. Additionally, Internet purchases are made by buyers all over the world, but third party payment systems are restricted for use in specific countries because they can only handle tax laws of select countries. Thus, there is a need for a flexible way to process purchase transactions.